


Dawn

by AbelQuartz



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Anger, Angst, Based on a Tumblr Post, Gen, Inspired by Fanart, Isolation, Short, Short One Shot, Steven Universe Future, pink steven
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-16
Updated: 2020-01-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:54:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22274392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AbelQuartz/pseuds/AbelQuartz
Summary: In his heart, Steven knows he has to control his pink outbursts. It's time for an exercise.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 117





	Dawn

**Author's Note:**

> Based on fanart by Tumblr user Novantinuum: https://tinyurl.com/qr7rngg

If Garnet saw him, she’d be furious. Or no, she’d understand the plight — or she’d weep in sympathy — how was he supposed to know how anyone else felt right now? Steven tightened his grip on his lapels and stood tall. Nobody was out here in the dawn. He had walked far enough up the beach so that the house was just a speck in the distance. The fog rolled over the beach half a mile back, getting ready to part for another sunrise.

  
The young man stood as tall as he could and planted his feet in the sand. Salty chills ran over his cheeks and knuckles. There had to be a way to get this working, and he had to do it himself. Thinking about the people he had hurt already wasn’t going to make this happen. Steven took a deep breath and rolled his shoulders, one at a time.

  
“Alright,” he whispered to the morning. “Alright. Let’s do it. Engage.”

  
Meditation had unfortunately taught Steven how to slip into that space, to close out the noises around him and seek himself inside. His mind slowed to a crawl, a lull, his heartbeat reaching a steady rhythm inside. This was his baseline. From here, Steven could concentrate on anywhere and anything. It was in his control, always within his own defined parameters. All he could do was push the limits. In a space without shame, with his mind stretching in all directions, Steven began to think about all the times he had become pink.

  
He could so clearly remember Jasper’s first taunts, the way her words dug like teeth under his skin. Each cutting remark, the insults and the hatred, they all dug like parasites into his teeth and made him grit and scream and retaliate. Yes, that was it, that was the word — retaliation. There was always someone to blame, something he was angry against. He hated the way she tried to make others feel small, as if she was the most important and the most powerful out of her kind. But she couldn’t begin to imagine what it was like to be there and actually be the most important person in the room. She would never know the pressure of having to save everyone. 

  
She would never have a mother. Those expectations from her beginning were hers alone, and the Diamonds could only pass down orders from afar. Jasper would never know what it was like to have a mother be sullied, over and over again, to have expectations that were impossible to fulfill. She’d never know the annoying titter of the past, like Volleyball’s incessant insistence on a scalding truth, more memories to unpack, more unknowns. Steven hated the extremes that were his constants: there was a world where everyone knew him more than he knew himself, and a world where he was second-guessed for a past he could never be privy to.

  
He didn’t have to open his eyes to feel it, but he did anyway. Steven couldn’t be surprised by his clenched fists. He could sense it all over his body, under his jacket, running down his back and his legs and itching beneath his soles. The pink thrummed heavily in the morning, a challenger to the sun. And Steven felt the heat of loathing start to boil his heart. What a specific and pleasurably prickliness, a terrible amalgam of longing for a future and a hatred of change. Friction defined him. Sparks tore out his self-restraint. Steven heaved several breaths as he bent his knees over the sand. The air hissed around him as he threw back his head and yelled wordlessly into the sky. 

  
Beneath his feet, the sand turned into glass and cracked violently in every direction. Seabirds screamed and flapped off from the dunes behind him, far away from their home. The dome of energy burst forth from Steven’s center and blasted rocks and shells away from him. He stood with his arms outstretched, seething and panting through his clenched teeth. After a moment of his ears ringing, there was more silence, but the blood still pounded in his ears.

  
He looked down with blurry eyes. The pink still glowed. The pink was still there. Steven let his aching mouth turn back to a small, surprised circle.

  
“No, nonono, it goes out, it stops. I get it out of my system and it — and it stops! Steven, stop!”

  
What power did a child have in a color’s domain? Steven could feel the anger underneath him. It ran through his veins and tracked itself to every part of his body. The energy was always there, always flowing, constantly coursing from where he had begin. His heart didn’t stop pumping. Steven stumbled backwards, sneakers squeaking on the erratic glass circle.

  
In a panic, he pushed up his jacket sleeve. There was nothing else to do. Steven rubbed quickly, up-and-down, from his elbow to his wrist. He knew it wouldn’t come off, but the anger had turned to panic, as volatile as it was powerful. The young man turned his fingers over and scraped, whimpering, digging at the pink skin and begging through shaking lips for the color to come off. He scratched from top to bottom, again and again, his right arm waving wildly as it dug into his flesh. The pain was dulled by the sheer power. Every scrape that he made was healed instantly without so much as a scar. Steven scratched constantly until his right arm seemed to jump away, as if to tell him how useless this was, and did he really think that would work, and what is he doing here anyway.

  
But he didn’t know how to make it stop. The fear of not knowing made it worse. The twitchy tension of his body reminded him every second about how he didn’t know and how he was afraid and how he couldn’t make it stop. Steven dropped his perfectly healed arm. The jacket sleeve slid down, and Steven stood there, body slumped, staring at the horizon with blubbering lips and his eyes as wide as the rising sun.

  
He opened his mouth, and the words were gripped by hands of pink and shoved down into his stomach once more. The dawn broke over the beach, lighting up the glass he had made and sending jagged reflections of his failure into the mist. The walk back was too far. He couldn’t go home like this. A peaceful sun shone down on the eastern border of Delmarva, rising an inch at a time, second by second, an immutable light. He couldn’t go home.


End file.
